


And Time Followed With Her

by FindingZ



Category: Homestuck
Genre: BAMF Grandma Jade, Character Study, Childrearing, Gen, Growing Old, Growing Up, Jake Is A Teeny Thing, Pre-Sburb/Sgrub, Sadstuck, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:26:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FindingZ/pseuds/FindingZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can still feel Space, sometimes, deep in your bones. Nowhere near as often as you did as a child, of course, but every now and again, when the sky is clear and wind crisp, you can feel a deep throbbing in the forefront of your mind that tells you to look up, look out, to look beyond your tiny universe to the void beyond. It itches in a mental way, nudging at you when you sleep and coloring your dreams purple-black. </p><p>(you used to tell John all about your dreams, when you were tiny and didn't know what it meant to have a repressed Aspect. She found out, though, because you had loose lips back then, and that was the end of that. A little while later, you saw that John had an easier time fetching things from high shelves than most people, and that sometimes he ran so fast that it couldn't possibly be natural. You didn't say anything, in case she caught you. You figured if another version of him had been drafted for a higher cause far away in another universe, he'd know. He'd find some way to tell you) </p><p>(he didn't)</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Time Followed With Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RainofLittleFishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/gifts).



When you abandoned your brother, you always dreamed of one day going back for him. Of whisking him from his all-too public life and towing him behind you through the world. You were never a fan of his methods of rebellion - _got to keep 'em close!_ he always chirped at you, but you had disagreed and, ultimately, packed your things.

You still think about it, sometimes. You'll catch glimpses of him now and again - news feeds on phones and laptops, articles in small, independent newspapers, and so forth. You can't escape him. Whenever you see him looking out at you with the same wide-eyed stare he was born wearing, you think about what it would mean to drop back into his life, to offer yourself up to _her_ and plaster a smile on your face while you tinker and build and pretend to further the cause of the Empire (except you couldn't, couldn't ever, even if you managed to remain stone-faced she'd know, she'd peer into your mind and pull out what interested her and replace it with something else, something that would make each subsequent break-in exponentially easier).

You at least know that John's mind is his own. When she tried, when the both of you were little, to test how much 'encouragement' you required to stop questioning her, it had ended ultimately with disaster - you remember clearly (like it was yesterday, like it's still happening) the bolt of agony that had shot through the front of your skull, the way you had doubled over and thrashed and yelled and kicked against invisible, grasping hands. John had remained perfectly still, face as pale as a lily, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. His expression branded itself into your brain - absolute, all-consuming terror.

Looking at him now, at his easy smile, his shining eyes, you know that is your brother you are seeing, not some meat puppet of the Empress. His mind is not the sort to get weaker with age. He is just fine.

Still, your instinctive reaction to seeing him plastered over posters and magazine covers is to take a match to each and every one of them. Your brother is too important for the world to know about. He belongs to the rebellion.

You, for the most part, barely pay any mind to it. There was a time where you were in the front lines, chief mistress of sabotage and mayhem, wreaking enough havoc to set the entrance of Sburb back by several years. Now, you hop from motel to motel, from continent to continent, trying to avoid your family. Sburb is coming, and you need to be ready.

You can still feel Space, sometimes, deep in your bones. Nowhere near as often as you did as a child, of course, but every now and again, when the sky is clear and wind crisp, you can feel a deep throbbing in the forefront of your mind that tells you to look up, look out, to look beyond your tiny universe to the void beyond. It itches in a mental way, nudging at you when you sleep and coloring your dreams purple-black.

(you used to tell John all about your dreams, when you were tiny and didn't know what it meant to have a repressed Aspect. _She_ found out, though, because you had loose lips back then, and that was the end of that. A little while later, you saw that John had an easier time fetching things from high shelves than most people, and that sometimes he ran so fast that it couldn't possibly be natural. You didn't say anything, in case she caught you. You figured if another version of him had been drafted for a higher cause far away in another universe, he'd know. He'd find some way to tell you)

(he didn't)

She's chasing you. It's easy to tell, easy to know by the individuals who sidle up to you in bars asking for a dance, a night alone, a favor, a trinket, anything at all - you can sense the blind malice in them, sense the blank expanse of their minds. You dispatch them easily enough and move onward, always onward, always a new town, a new city, with new people trying to lure you into dark, quiet corners.

It's all right, though. You don't mind - it keeps your brain fresh, keeps you focused. Who knows who you might have become if you did not have to run with the fear of assimilation eating at your heels? She's like acid, like a solar flare. She's the embodiment of evil welling up in the void spaces of the multiverse, nothing but a spillover of malicious intent and single-minded purpose. She's even worse because she _has_ a purpose (a purpose you can sympathize with).

She's trying to live, just as you are. Just as John is, just as your whole species is. Her only motive is survival but she's _different,_ so different from you - she reaches outward for motivation and resources, while you have always gone in, in, as far inside yourself as you can in times of need. You think that even if she had not chosen the path of conquest, you would have despised her purely for being so different from you and so successful regardless of it.

You are holed up in a small motel known for its peeling wallpaper and suspicious upholstery stains in a no-name town when _it_ happens. Your room had come with an old, practically archaic mini-fridge barely half the size of a breadbox and as empty as your stomach. You are flopped on the lumpy armchair with the fraying fabric on the arms, regarding it with an irritated disposition. You don't want to go out. You've thus far been completely invisible here, and the more you venture to the markets to buy bread and vegetables, the sooner persons in dark clothing will begin to go out of their way to catch your gaze on street corners. The sooner that happens, the sooner you'll have to leave.

Which is fine. Absolutely fine. It has to happen (will always happen) sooner or later. You just like being invisible, is all. It gives you time to think clearly. But food is food, and out into the world you must go.

You debate tucking your hair up into a hat or under a scarf. Decide against it - it's your calling card, after all. Easily recognizable, even in crowded areas. A taunt - _can't catch me, you'll never catch me_ , visible to anyone with half-decent eyesight. You let it fall down your back and swing against your hips and step outside.

It's extraordinarily hot outside. The sun has yet to rise to high noon - and is behind the clouds, no less - and still your skin feels as though it is sloughing off from the humidity The streets are empty - the little side alleyway that you are residing in shows no signs of life. No birds, no stray cats, nor hungry dogs poke at the rubble that spills over from the trash cans.

It really is hot. Growing hotter by the second, it seems, although inside your cramped, barely ventilated motel room it had been as cool as could be. You weigh your growling stomach against the quarter-mile you have to walk, and decide to call your venture to a halt. You spin on your heel to head back; your stomach feels as though it contains a gladiator ring, complete with roaring spectators, but you can wait until near sundown, when it will inevitably be cooler.

But the roaring crowd has taken a stand outside your stomach - the noise has converged around you, isn't within you at all, it's _real,_ it's filling your ears and coming from

...above?

You look up and are blinded - the sun has descended into the atmosphere, is still descending, is falling like a shooting star and coming directly towards you.

You don't think, don't have time to think it odd, don't have time to remind yourself of the impossibility of the sun falling on you - you fling yourself out of the way for all the good that it will do and rebound harshly against concrete. Both hands outstretched to catch yourself as you slump to the dirty cobblestones, you don't have time to cover your ears as the noise encompasses your entire being, reverberates in your sternum and rattles your ribcage in such a way that steals the air from you. You inhale dust and dirt and gravel and cough madly, try to shove yourself to your feet but are instead flattened by a wave of force that tears through the air and renders all to two-dimensional structures.

It is over as soon as it had started. You lie there for a moment or two, trying to clear the ringing from your ears while you do as thorough a self-diagnostic you can. No limbs are broken. You have no lacerations that you can feel. Your mind is clear. You are unhurt.

A baby is crying.

You are slow to stand up. Debris flutters around you. The world is silent. Completely silent - your ears seem to physically strain to catch noise and start to tingle when they find none. You turn your head and regard the crater where your motel stood moments before - the cheap plaster of the walls, the wooden beams holding the roof up, the concrete of the foundation - all reduced to a fine gray ash that drifts up on some unfelt breeze towards the heavens.

You revolve around in a neat circle, unable to blink. It's not just your motel - the entire _block_ has been rendered to crumbling ruins. The entire town, perhaps. You are in the midst of a warzone. You and you alone are untouched.

(or are you?)

The baby is still crying.

You and it are the only apparent signs of life. How did it survive? Where is its mother?

You pick your way through the mess with some difficulty, pausing to tilt your head and listen to reorient yourself and correct your course. Given the clear volume of the cry, the child is not trapped - he or she is exposed to open air. You are allowed to not panic.

Not yet. A bomb or some equivalent has gone off here. The Empress is behind it, you know she is - a last-ditch, desperate (failed) attempt upon your life? Breaking out the big guns, as the saying goes?

You should have died. You were at the heart of it, you should have been incinerated or crushed or blown away or any number of plausible and statistically inevitable events likely to happen to someone in your position.

And yet here you are.

The cries are close, coming from behind the tattered, singed remnants of an overhead shop sign wedged into the earth where it fell. You swallow once, twice, and peer around it.

You are looking at what is quite clearly the center of the blast - the ground dips into a neat circle of blackened earth, much deeper than the surrounding area. Lying in the center, flailing its fists and wailing, is a very, very small baby.

Its eyes lock on to you and you are paralyzed by the familiar shade of green. It stops crying immediately and instead smiles, coos, stretches its chubby little arms towards you in a universal demand for comfort and human contact.

 _Oh_.

You were wrong. You were so wrong, so, so wrong - not the Empress at all. Quite the opposite.

The Game is here and has given you a deadline.

You scoop up the child and hurry away as quickly as you can. No more running, no more motel-hopping for you, not now.

It's here.

 

**

 

Your grandson rises with the birds. You have travelled all over the world with him strapped to your back, exposing to him steaming jungles, vast glaciers, unforgiving expanses of desert, every biome you have thought to take shelter in, and no matter which hemisphere you wander to, however dark or light or light it may be when the first winged song wafts into your ears, your little boy is up and smiling with all the vim and vigor of a sunflower. Whether you set him down the night before in a sling, a hammock, or a mere bundle of blankets at your side, he will find a way to crawl over to you and touch your face to rouse you, just so he can inform you that the day has begun.

You love him so. Your little miracle child.

He is nearing three, you think, possibly four years old. He walks with his back straight and proud, his eyes are clear, and he is as verbal as anyone you have ever met. You wish you could say he acquired the trait from you, but you are ashamed to admit that you don't speak very often these days. When you do, it's always to him. You think that might be all right, though, because he'll chatter away enough for a whole roomful of people - your silence hasn't rubbed off on him, thank goodness.

A bird is screaming in alarm when you open your eyes. Jake is patting your cheek in sharp, impatient little slaps.

"G'ma, you hafta help!"

You are slower to rise than usual. The evenings have been cold and damp lately, settling into your bones and rendering you sluggish and thick-witted. It is all you can do to keep an eye on Jake while you are working - luckily he is easy to amuse, and will happily entertain himself for hours while you work in the garden.

Jake pulls you over to the window, both little hands tugging at yours. "Go help!" He commands, and tilts his head at the scene outside. You scrub the dirt from your eyes and look.

The carcass of a rabbit is being consumed with great gusto by three crows. In the background, at the edge of your tomato patch, two others are swooping and dive-bombing a fox, keeping it away from the rest of the group while the meal commences. As you watch, the fox snaps blindly at the air and snags a wing - feathers go flying in all directions. The three feasting crows begin to scream in anger and surprise, adding to the ruckus. Jake covers his ears and looks up at you pleadingly.

"Please!"

You take him by the shoulders and lead him away as gently as you can. "It's the natural order of things, sweet pea. Death happens."

You are expecting him to cry, but he doesn't. Just gets this very contemplative (very adult) expression on his tiny little face and heaves out a great big sigh. "It's not fair."

"No, it isn't." You don't want to tell him that life isn't fair - you and John were told that, back when you were little and still under the same roof - but at the same time you want him to be able to take care of himself and be realistic about the world.

Another time. You don't have the energy right this second.

"Come have some breakfast?" Your kitchen isn't finished - you have all the materials to cook, the pots and pans and the small propane stove you scavenged, but until your garden comes in and you are able to leave Jake alone long enough to hunt down protein, your diet consists of mainly canned goods and simple foods you find in the wild. You have a few more cans of peaches, you think. You were planning to save them for a special occasion - his birthday, maybe? You don't have an exact date, of course, but you were thinking the day of your first harvest would be as good a day as any - but you feel the need to distract him with sweet foods to take his mind off of things. "Go have a seat. I'll bring you some peaches."

He toddles along to the rough wooden table you built from driftwood and the tree that fell in the monsoon last season. He's still too small for a grownup chair, but you've piled books in strategic places to allow him to clamber on and dismount with ease. Two dictionaries let him peer at you across the table, let him rest his elbows on either side of his plate.

"No peaches," he says. "We only have three cans!"

"We have to eat them eventually." You remind him. He shakes his head vehemently.

"No! We can't eat them until we find more peaches. That way we'll always have peaches!"

He reminds you so much of John. Looks like him, too - the nose, the jawline, the coarse, wiry hair, it's all John. From you he inherited your eyes, your affinity for the outdoors. You wonder what else was programmed into him, what bits of your bloodline were harvested and deemed worthy by the ecotobiologist who sent him to you.

(you hope Jake inherited your skill with weapons. Given the future laid out for him, you feel it would make his path just that much easier if defending himself came as easily to him as it did for you)

Jake continues to refuse peaches when you offer them a second and then third, final time. You end up feeding the both of you oatmeal instead. You mix some berries into his, just to make sure he gets the vitamins, gets the instant sugar boost to get him going. Not that he needs it, but you feel better about yourself for doing so. He should get cheap calories where he can, you think, and so you bribe him with sugar and carbohydrates and muss his hair up while he guzzles them down.

He's going to grow up so fast.

You hope, for his sake, that Skaia will be kind to him. That it will wait for him to grow tall, grow strong, become an adult before it plucks him out of the world. Hope that he'll be old enough to understand, hope that he won't be too bitter about it. How do you tell a toddler that he's meant to die and ascend to a higher cause?

(you don't, that's how. You'll have to let him figure it out himself, as much as it pains you to realize)

You don't understand how someone like him could be dragged into the Game. Why _him_? He'll survive the Reckoning because of it, of course, but it brings you no joy to picture him rising above the ashes of the old world. Sometimes, you end up lying awake late into the night, wondering if you are a horrible person for wishing he would just die with the rest of the unchosen. It would be quick, you know it would. You could hold him in your arms, distract him as the meteors closed in, as the trees blazed and disintegrated around you. You could say goodbye.

"Why're you sad?" Jake flicks a bit of oatmeal off of his spoon in his haste to touch your arm. It lands on the floor with a wet sound; he immediately goes pale, looks from the mess to you, chews on his lip like he's trying to figure out which problem to deal with first, then resumes pattering your wrist. "Did you want more oatmeal?"

You laugh. You can't help it. How is he able to do that? When he tangles his hands in your hair and pulls, insistent, demanding an answer, you gently remove them and smack a kiss on his palms. "No, I'm all full up. Go right ahead - have all you like."

"No, I'm full too. Tell me why you're sad, Grandma!"

You ought to tell him. You can just imagine how it would go. You'd put your hand on his shoulder, lift him into your lap, maybe, and stroke his hair back. _My dear,_ you'd say, _I wish you had not survived the impact on this rock so as to save you from what's coming._ Instead, you say, "I'm thinking about death. That's why I'm sad."

"Oh." He says. Grabs your braid again and tugs on it a little. "Because of the bird?"

"Exactly." He needs a haircut, speaking of which. You ought to sit him down and trim it, but he'd never acquiesce to remain still for that long.

"Oh, don't worry," he says, and taps a chubby finger to his temple. "He's still alive in here, you know. Lots of things are."

"Of course he is." You push back from the table, collect both empty bowls. "Of course they are."

 

**

 

Jake inherits your skill with firearms, much to your abrupt and immediate gratitude. You teach him basic safety for his seventh (?) birthday, and you have little to do after that apart from supervising him while he's practicing. The boy has an eye for precision, and when he shows you his target dummy riddled with holes all within the same two inch area, you almost cry. _He's going to be just fine,_ you tell yourself. _Just fine._

You try to figure out what his Aspect is and fail miserably. He's not Space, you can tell that at a glance (are a little disappointed - he deserves the key role, deserves the awe and respect that come with the abilities you're most familiar with), isn't Light, isn't Void, certainly - Breath, maybe, or Hope? He's so unbound, so limitless in his interactions with his environment, you can't imagine him with any of the more philosophical Aspects.

You are just happy he clearly isn't Time. You wouldn't wish the fear and anxiety associated with that role upon anyone, least of all him. It would break him.

(you feel like he's a Knight, feel like he will be the one to champion his session, to rise up and make a difference. Watching him romp around the jungle, shrieking and laughing, the one and only master of himself and the small patch of world he calls his own - he has to be a Knight. Has to be. You don't know of any other Class that would make him behave in such a manner)

(you hope he's a Knight)

 

**

 

You will tell him about the Game for his thirteenth birthday, you decide. An unpleasant but necessary gift - you'll take him aside and sit him on your lap, just like old days, you think. You'll pet his hair back from his face and tell him what to do when the meteors come, how to prototype a guide, how to rise through the ranks like a balloon. You'll paint a picture of what he could gain by playing, you'll give him a glimpse of the end results before telling him just how he'll have to get there. You'll have to tell him about his conditional immortality. You hope he cries when you tell him - you want him to rage, rage, rage against fate. You want him to be motivated to change things. He is not the sort to fall into a rut and refuse to clamber out (you hope, oh, how you hope he isn't).

You wonder if he'll have nightmares when you tell him. Maybe when he does you'll offer to read to him 'for old time's sake,' and will 'accidentally' fall asleep in the chair next to his bed to keep an eye on him. He's so affectionate, has yet to reach the stage of life where he rejects your attention, has yet to refuse a single hug you've offered - he wouldn't mind you sharing his space, not after something like that.

You hope he takes it well.

 

**

 

You know she's coming before she arrives. You can feel it, tingling in the back of your head like a blurry projector image - _she's here, she's here_. Jake is still sleeping - the sun is just barely considering peering up over the treeline, and he has yet to stir from his dreams. You creep into his room, smooth his hair back (it's become quite long while you've had your concentration elsewhere - it's starting to curl at his temples, just a little). You'd sing him a song, one last tune for old time's sake, but you don't want to wake him. You couldn't handle having to lie to him, having to tell him you've gone out to start your day a bit earlier than usual, that you'll be back in time for his afternoon snack like you always are (he might never know that you went to die in his place, that she came for him but would pick you over him any day. She'll still have her sights on him but she'll wait until the Session starts, she'll give him time to learn to hate her before she moves in).

He looks so peaceful. Will he find your body? You hope he does, know he will. He'll need the closure of laying you to rest.

You don't take weapons. Even with what little, fumbling, barest inkling of control you have over Space, you wouldn't stand a chance against _any_ adult troll, let alone the Empress herself. You know in painstaking detail what she is capable of. If you come unarmed, she will not be tempted to play with you. It will be quick. Near-painless, if luck is on your side. You know precisely what she'll say.

Her ship materializes over the island the moment you step away from the treeline, decloaking in one smooth action. You wonder just how much energy it was costing her Helmsman to maintain, how much pain it added to its burden. The vessel is exactly as you remembered it - large enough to block out the sun, reflecting enough light to force you to look away, to look down at your feet as you wait for her to emerge and descend. Just as she likes it.

"Hello, dear." She calls down. The ships loudspeakers echo through your bones, carrying the rough tones of her voice all the way down to you. She speaks in flawless English - she lost her accent long ago, long before you were born. She's mocking you, not giving you the dignity of speaking to her in her own language. You learned Alternian from the cradle, but she won't acknowledge that. She'll treat you like the Old Ones, the first generation of human subjects who were too scared, too close-minded to learn the language.

(you did not teach a word of Alternian to Jake. Where he will be going, you doubt he will need it)

A small craft emerges from the massive underbelly. It lands gracefully in front of you after a slow descent, and a hatch in the top opens. She appears, a mass of black and gold, and vaults over the side. Walks towards you majestically, confident of her control.

"Darling," she says, and opens her arms. "It's been so long! All grown up, aren'tcha? C'mere." She pulls you into a cold embrace. The pads of her fingers are flat along your spine - not a hint of claw prickles you. She pulls back to look at you. "You made me so proud, you know that, right?"

"All thanks to you, Meenah." You keep your face as still as possible. Feel her claw tips skitter up to the back of your neck, dig in a little. "You look the same as ever."

She bares her teeth in an attempt at humor. Her incisors are as long as your little finger. "You were always a sweetie-pie. How's the lil' wiggler?"

"Jake is just fine."

"Sure he is," she says. "Sure he is. What's his Aspect, huh? He's gonna make his two Grandmamas so proud."

"I'm sure he will."

"'Course he will." She smacks a kiss on your forehead containing not a hint of teeth. "Any last words, dearie?"

"No."

"Aww." She rolls her shoulders, readjusts her grip on her trident. "Shame. Don' wanna hafta do this, you know? You're a good kid. Jus' a pain in the ass, is all. Nothin' personal. Don' worry - game'll be startin' soon. Jake'll prolly resurrect you as a sprite or somethin'."

(oh, wouldn't that be lovely? An unlikely possibility, though. The game will not be starting for several years, at least, and you have not taught Jake to be sentimental. You doubt he'd keep anything significant enough of yours to be later used in prototyping)

(the Empress will make sure of that)

She's twirling her trident around and around, looking you up and down. "Awful calm there, darlin'."

"There are many worse fates than death."

She nods, contemplative. "S'true, s'true. Glad you think that, girlie. Under different circumstancs, we coulda been good friends. The best. Maybe in the new universe you'll be workin' for me, how'sabout that?"

You give her your widest smile. "Under _very_ different circumstances, perhaps so."

"Perhaps." She agrees, and touches your cheek. "We shall have to see, won't we? I look forward to it. Are you ready?"

"Of course," you say, and pull your shoulders back. "Whatever are you waiting for, Meenah?"

"Nothin'." She says, and pulls back her trident. "Nothin' at all."

 

**

 

There is no pain. She slipped into your mind as she dealt the blow, numbing your whole body before turning to leave. She knew it would be a slow demise - you imagine she wanted you to be clearheaded when you died, to give you plenty of time to contemplate your life choices. You know you are supposed to think of it as a mercy, but as you lay there and watch the progression of the sun overhead all you can think of is whether Jake has woken up yet. If he'll come looking for you. If he'll find you before you slip away. You hope he doesn't, don't want him to have the trauma of watching you die before him. Better if he finds you later, if he doesn't know what happened to you.

You know he'll be all right. He's a Player, after all; he's destined to survive at the very least until the first prototyping. Skaia will keep him alive.

He's going to miss you. When was the last time you held his hand? Not long ago, but not recently, either. You strain to remember the texture of his fingers, of the whorls and grooves in his palms. You can't.

Your vision is beginning to blur. There is still no pain, but you have the oddest soaring sensation, like you've jumped off a swing. You cannot summon the energy to roll over on to your back, can only tilt your head to the side a little. A beetle crawls up a blade of grass, inches from your nose. You can barely see the sky in your peripheral vision - just an unassuming streak of blue in the corner of your eye. You wish she had had the decency to let you die looking up into the universe.

The sun climbs higher. You feel as light as a bird. The grass underneath you is wet and sticky. Your clothing has crusted to your torso, pulls at your skin each time you shift, trying to get away from the feeling. You can barely see anything beyond the beetle clinging to the grass in front of you - the rest is a dark smear that hurts your head to try and focus on. Your ears are ringing. You taste iron.

"Oh," you manage to say. "This is it?" It's so peaceful. Like you're dreaming, like you're going to wake up soon (fall asleep soon).

You wish Jake were here. A purely selfish instinct, you shouldn't ever want to subject him to witnessing something like this, but oh, you want to just see him one last time, why didn't you spend a little more time with him before you left? You could have touched his hair one last time, combed it with your fingers, maybe you should have woken him up first? So you could make him breakfast, see him smile at you over the table, hear him say _I love you, Grandma!_

_Oh._

_I love you too,_ you think, _I love you, I love you, Jake, I love -_

Your vision dims. You are sinking under a wave, caught in a current you can't control, thinking _I love you, I love you_ -

And then the world closes in.

   

**Author's Note:**

> WOW, this was so much fun to write. A big heaping thank you to RainofLittleFishes for an amazing prompt that made me do far more worldbuilding than I could cram into this little oneshot (so of course I am planning some sequels to churn out when I get a free moment)!


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